RIGHT  READING 


RIGHT    READING 

WORDS   OF  GOOD  COUNSEL 

ON 
THE  CHOICE  AND    USE  OF   BOOKS 

SELECTED 
FROM   THE  WRITINGS 

OF 

TEN   FAMOUS 
AUTHORS 


CHICAGO 

A.  C.  McCLURG  &  COMPANY 
MDCCCCII 


COPYRIGHT  BY  A.  C.  MCCLURO  &  CO.,  1902 


PUBLISHED  FEBRUARY  1,  1902 


D.  B.  UPDIKE,  THE  MERRYMOUNT  PRESS,  BOSTON 


W^HEREVER  we  go  in  life,  even  in  the  darkest 
alleys  of  literature,  a  pood  and  an  evil  example  will 
always  be  put  before  usf^and  because  this  world  is 
not  heaven,  we  must  be  left  to  make  our  choice 
between  good  and  evil;  but  the  more  a  person's 
mews  are  enlarged,  and  the  wider  the  choice  that 
is  offered  to  him,  the  better  hope  there  is  that  he 
may  take  the  good  and  leave  the  evil.  All  that  we 
can  do  is  to  give  him  light — light  in  every  possi- 
ble direction;  and  if  a  man  chooses  to  mako  a  bad 
use  of  his  eyes  and  ears,  and  of  his  other  faculties, 
all  that  we  can  say  is,  we  have  done  our  best;  we 
cannot  make  the  world  heaven. 

Archbishop  Whately 


282161 


NOTE 

FOR  courteous  permission  to  use  some  of 
the  matter  contained  in  this  little  book, 
thanks  are  due  to  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison 
and  Mr.  John  Morley,  and  to  Messrs.  Mac- 
millan  &  Co.,  Limited,  London,  and  The 
Macmillan  Company,  New  York.  The  ex- 
tracts from  Emerson  and  Lowell  are  in- 
cluded by  kind  permission  of,  and  by  special 
arrangement  with,  Messrs.  Hough  ton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  publishers  of  the  works  of  Emerson 
and  Lowell. 


LIST  OF  AUTHORS 

PAGE 

/.    Sir  Arthur  Helps  (1813-1875)  13 

//.  Thomas  Carlyle  (1795-1881)  23 

///.  Isaac  D1 Israeli  (1766-1848)  31 

IV.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  (1803-1882)  39 

V.    Arthur  Schopenhauer  (1788-1860)  47 

VI.    John  Ruskin  (1819-1900)  53 

VIL    Julius  Charles  Hare  (1795-1855)  67 

VIII.    John  Morley  (b.  1838)  73 

IX.    James  Russell  Lowell  (1819-1891)  83 

-X.   Frederic  Harrison  (b.  1831)  91 


SIR  ARTHUR  HELPS 


Sir  Arthur  Helps 


(jTlBBON  says,  "After  a  certain  age,  the  new 
publications  of  merit  are  the  sole  food  of  the 
many."  A  sarcastic  person  would  perhaps  remark 
that  the  words  "of  merit"  might  be  omitted  with- 
out injury  to  the  truth  of  the  sentence.  But  that 
would  be  too  severe ;  for  the  publications  of  merit 
do  mostly  obtain  some  hearing  in  their  own  day, 
though  a  very  disproportionate  one  to  what  they 
should  have;  as  it  is  exceedingly  difficult,  even 
for  highly-cultivated  persons,  to  make  good  selec- 
tion of  the  nascent  fruits  and  flowers  of  literature 
amidst  the  rank  herbage  of  the  day. 

Before  entering  upon  the  mode  of  managing 
study ;  or  perhaps  I  ought  to  use  the  word  read- 
ing instead  of  study  (for  it  would  be  quite  wrong 
to  suppose  that  the  following  remarks  apply  to 
professed  students  only) ;  it  would  be  well  to  see 
what  does  really  happen  in  life  as  regards  the 
intellectual  cultivation  of  most  grown-up  people. 

13 


RIGHT  READING 


I  ask  them,  Is  it  not  mainly  dependent  upon 
chance?  The  professional  man,  wearied  with  the 
cares  and  labours  of  his  office  or  employment,  when 
he  comes  home,  takes  up  whatever  book  may 
happen  to  be  the  reading  of  his  wife,  or  mother, 
or  daughters :  and  they,  for  women  are  often  edu- 
cated in  a  way  to  avoid  method  and  intellectual 
strength  of  any  kind,  are  probably  contented  with 
what  the  circulating  library  affords,  and  read  ac- 
cording to  the  merest  rumour  and  fashion  of  the 
present  hour.  Again,  what  is  called  light  litera- 
ture (how  it  has  obtained  or  maintained  that 
name  is  surprising),  criticisms,  scraps,  tales,  and 
the  like,  is  nearly  the  sole  intellectual  food  of 
many  intelligent  persons.  Now,  without  under- 
valuing this  kind  of  literature,  which  improved 
as  it  would  be  if  addressed  to  a  class  of  persons 
who  were  wont  to  read  with  wisdom  and  method, 
would  be  very  serviceable  to  those  persons;  we 
cannot  say  but  that  to  make  such  literature  the 
staple  of  the  mind  is  unworthy  and  frivolous  in 
the  extreme. 

I    believe,    however,   that   many   persons   are 
aware  how  indifferently  they  are  spending  their 


14 


SIR   ARTHUR   HELPS 


time  in  the  way  they  read  at  present ;  and  I  shall 
not  labour  any  more  at  this  part  of  the  subject, 
but  come  at  once  to  what  appears  to  me  the  rem- 
edy for  the  evil:  which  is,  that  every  man  and 
every  woman  who  can  read  at  all,  should  adopt 
some  definite  purpose  in  their  reading — should 
take  something  for  the  main  stem  and  trunk  of 
their  culture,  whence  branches  might  grow  out  in 
all  directions  seeking  light  and  air  for  the  parent 
tree,  which,  it  is  hoped,  might  end  in  becoming 
something  useful  and  ornamental,  and  which,  at 
any  rate,  all  along  will  have  had  life  and  growth 
in  it.  ... 

If  we  consider  what  are  the  objects  men  pursue, 
wfyen  conscious  of  any  object  at  all,  in  reading, 
they  are  these :  amusement,  instruction,  a  wish  to 
appear  well  in  society,  and  a  desire  to  pass  away 
time.  Now  even  the  lowest  of  these  objects  is 
facilitated  by  reading  with  method.  The  keenness 
of  pursuit  thus  engendered  enriches  the  most  tri- 
fling gain,  takes  away  the  sense  of  dulness  in  de- 
tails, and  gives  an  interest  to  what  would  other- 
wise be  most  repugnant.  No  one  who  has  never 
known  the  eager  joy  of  some  intellectual  pursuit 

15 


RIGHT  READING 


can  understand  the  full  pleasure  of  reading.  .  .  . 
There  is  another  view  of  reading  which  though 
it  is  obvious  enough,  is  seldom  taken,  I  imagine,  or 
at  least  acted  upon ;  and  that  is,  that  in  the  course 
of  our  reading  we  should  lay  up  in  our  minds  a 
store  of  goodly  thoughts  in  well-wrought  words, 
which  should  be  a  living  treasure  of  knowledge 
always  with  us,  and  from  which,  at  various  times 
and  amidst  all  the  shifting  of  circumstances,  we 
might  be  sure  of  drawing  some  comfort,  guidance, 
and  sympathy.  We  see  this  with  regard  to  the 
sacred  writings.  "A  word  spoken  in  due  season, 
how  good  is  it ! "  But  there  is  a  similar  comfort  on 
a  lower  level  to  be  obtained  from  other  sources 
than  sacred  ones.  In  any  work  that  is  worth  care- 
fully reading,  there  is  generally  something  that 
is  worth  remembering  accurately.  A  man  whose 
mind  is  enriched  with  the  best  sayings  of  the 
poets  of  his  own  country  is  a  more  independent 
man,  walks  the  streets  in  a  town,  or  the  lanes  in 
the  country,  with  far  more  delight  than  he  other- 
wise would  have ;  and  is  taught  by  wise  observers 
of  man  and  nature  to  examine  for  himself.  Sancho 
Panza  with  his  proverbs  is  a  great  deal  better  than 


16 


SIR  ARTHUR  HELPS 


he  would  have  been  without  them :  and  I  contend 
that  a  man  has  something  in  himself  to  meet 
troubles  and  difficulties,  small  or  great,  who  has 
stored  in  his  mind  some  of  the  best  things  which 
have  been  said  about  troubles  and  difficulties. 
Moreover,  the  loneliness  of  sorrow  is  thereby 
diminished.  .  .  . 

I  have  not  hitherto  spoken  of  the  indirect  ad- 
vantage of  methodical  reading  in  the  culture  of 
the  mind.  One  of  the  dangers  supposed  to  be  in- 
cident upon  a  life  of  study  is,  that  purpose  and 
decisiveness  are  worn  away.  Not,  as  1  contend, 
upon  a  life  of  study  such  as  it  ought  to  be.  For 
pursued  methodically  there  must  be  some,  and 
not  a  little,  of  the  decision,  resistance,  and  te- 
nacity of  pursuit  which  create,  or  further,  great- 
ness of  character  in  action.  Though,  as  I  have 
said,  there  are  times  of  keen  delight  to  a  man 
who  is  engaged  in  any  distinct  pursuit,  there  are 
also  moments  of  weariness,  vexation,  and  vacil- 
lation, which  will  try  the  metal  in  him  and  see 
whether  he  is  worthy  to  understand  and  master 
anything.  For  this  you  may  observe,  that  in  all 
times  and  all  nations,  sacrifice  is  needed.  The 


17 


RIGHT   READING 


savage  Indian  who  was  to  obtain  any  insight  into 
the  future  had  to  starve  for  it  for  a  certain  time. 
Even  the  fancy  of  this  power  was  not  to  be  gained 
without  paying  for  it.  And  was  anything  real  ever 
gained  without  sacrifice  of  some  kind? 

There  is  a  very  refined  use  which  reading  might 
be  put  to:  namely,  to  counteract  the  particular 
evils  and  temptations  of  our  callings,  the  original 
imperfections  of  our  characters,  the  tendencies  of 
our  age  or  of  our  own  time  of  life.  Those,  for 
instance,  who  are  versed  in  dull  crabbed  work  all 
day,  of  a  kind  which  is  always  exercising  the  logi- 
cal faculty  and  demanding  minute,  not  to  say 
vexatious,  criticism,  would,  during  their  leisure, 
do  wisely  to  expatiate  in  writings  of  a  large  and 
imaginative  nature.  These,  however,  are  often  the 
persons  who  particularly  avoid  poetry  and  works 
of  imagination,  whereas  they  ought,  perhaps,  to 
cultivate  them  most.  For  it  should  be  one  of  the 
frequent  objects  of  every  man  who  cares  for  the 
culture  of  his  whole  being,  to  give  some  exercise 
to  those  faculties  which  are  not  demanded  by  his 
daily  occupations  and  not  encouraged  by  his  dis- 
position. .  .  . 


18 


SIR  ARTHUR   HELPS 


At  any  rate  we  cannot  be  wrong,  whether  we 
are  professed  students,  or  soldiers,  or  men  of  the 
world,  or  whatever  we  are,  in  endeavouring  to 
make  the  time  we  give  to  books  a  time  not  spent 
unprofitably  to  ourselves  and  our  fellow-creatures ; 
and  this  will  never  be  the  case  if  we  are  the  vic- 
tims of  chance  in  what  we  take  up  to  read ;  if  we 
vacillate  forever  in  our  studies,  or  if  we  never 
look  for  anything  in  them,  but  the  ease  of  the 
present  moment,  or  the  gratification  of  getting  rid 
of  it  insensibly. 

FRIENDS  IN  COUNCIL 


19 


THOMAS  CARLYLE 


Thomas  Carlyle 


WE  have  not  read  an  author  till  we  have  seen 
his  object,  whatever  it  may  be,  as  he  saw  it.  Is  it 
a  matter  of  reasoning,  and  has  he  reasoned  stu- 
pidly and  falsely?  We  should  understand  the  cir- 
cumstances which,  to  his  mind,  made  it  seem  true, 
or  persuaded  him  to  write  it,  knowing  that  it  was 
not  so.  In  any  other  way  we  do  him  injustice  if  we 
judge  him.  Is  it  of  poetry  ?  His  words  are  so  many 
symbols,  to  which  we  ourselves  must  furnish  the 
interpretation;  or  they  remain,  as  in  all  prosaic 
minds  the  words  of  poetry  ever  do,  a  dead  letter : 
indications  they  are,  barren  in  themselves,  but,  by 
following  which,  we  also  may  reach,  or  approach, 
that  Hill  of  Vision  where  the  poet  stood,  behold- 
ing the  glorious  scene  which  it  is  the  purport  of 
his  poem  to  show  others. 

A  reposing  state,  in  which  the  Hill  were  brought 
under  us,  not  we  obliged  to  mount  it,  might  in- 
deed for  the  present  be  more  convenient ;  but,  in 

23 


RIGHT  READING 


the  end,  it  could  not  be  equally  satisfying.  Con- 
tinuance of  passive  pleasure,  it  should  never  be 
forgotten,  is  here,  as  under  all  conditions  of  mor- 
tal existence,  an  impossibility.  Everywhere  in  life, 
the  true  question  is,  not  what  we  gain,  but  what  we 
do :  so  also  in  intellectual  matters,  in  conversation, 
in  reading,  which  is  more  precise  and  careful  con- 
versation, it  is  not  what  we  receive,  but  what  we  are 
made  to  give,  that  chiefly  contents  and  profits  us. 
True,  the  mass  of  readers  will  object;  because, 
like  the  mass  of  men,  they  are  too  indolent.  But 
if  any  one  affect,  not  the  active  and  watchful,  but 
the  passive  and  somnolent  line  of  study,  are  there 
not  writers  expressly  fashioned  for  him,  enough 
and  to  spare?  It  is  but  the  smaller  number  of 
books  that  become  more  instructive  by  a  second 
perusal :  the  great  majority  are  as  perfectly  plain 
as  perfect  triteness  can  make  them.  Yet,  if  time 
is  precious,  no  book  that  will  not  improve  by  re- 
peated readings  deserves  to  be  read  at  all.  And 
were  there  an  artist  of  a  right  spirit:  a  man  of 
wisdom,  conscious  of  his  high  vocation,  of  whom 
we  could  know  beforehand  that  he  had  not  writ- 
ten without  purpose  and  earnest  meditation,  that 


THOMAS  CARLYLE 


he  knew  what  he  had  written,  and  had  embodied 
in  it,  more  or  less,  the  creations  of  a  deep  and 
noble  soul,  — should  we  not  draw  near  to  him  rev- 
erently, as  disciples  to  a  master ;  and  what  task 
could  there  be  more  profitable  than  to  read  him  as 
we  have  described,  to  study  him  even  to  his  min- 
utest meanings?  For,  were  not  this  to  think  as  he 
had  thought,  to  see  with  his  gifted  eyes,  to  make 
the  very  mood  and  feeling  of  his  great  and  rich 
mind  the  mood  also  of  our  poor  and  little  one? 
GOETHE'S  HELENA 


IF,  in  any  vacant  vague  time,  you  are  in  a  strait 
as  to  choice  of  reading,  a  very  good  indication  for 
you,  perhaps  the  best  you  could  get,  is  toward 
some  book  you  have  a  great  curiosity  about.  You 
are  then  in  the  readiest  and  best  of  all  possible 
conditions  to  improve  by  that  book.  It  is  analo- 
gous to  what  doctors  tell  us  about  the  physical 
health  and  appetites  of  the  patient.  You  must 
learn,  however,  to  distinguish  between  false  ap- 
petite and  true.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  false 

96 


RIGHT  READING 


appetite,  which  will  lead  a  man  into  vagaries  with 
regard  to  diet ;  will  tempt  him  to  eat  spicy  things, 
which  he  should  not  eat  at  all,  nor  would,  but  that 
the  things  are  toothsome,  and  that  he  is  under  a 
momentary  baseness  of  mind.  A  man  ought  to  ex- 
amine and  find  out  what  he  really  and  truly  has 
an  appetite  for,  what  suits  his  constitution  and 
condition;  and  that,  doctors  tell  him,  is  in  gen- 
eral the  very  thing  he  ought  to  have.  And  so  with 
books.  .  .  . 

I  do  not  know  whether  it  has  been  sufficiently 
brought  home  to  you  that  there  are  two  kinds  of 
books.  When  a  man  is  reading  on  any  kind  of 
subject,  in  most  departments  of  books, — in  all 
books,  if  you  take  it  in  a  wide  sense,  —  he  will 
find  that  there  is  a  division  into  good  books  and 
bad  books.  Everywhere  a  good  kind  of  book  and 
a  bad  kind  of  book.  I  am  not  to  assume  that  you 
are  unacquainted,  or  ill-acquainted,  with  this  plain 
fact ;  but  I  may  remind  you  that  it  is  becoming  a 
very  important  consideration  in  our  day.  And  we 
have  to  cast  aside  altogether  the  idea  people  have, 
that  if  they  are  reading  any  book,  that  if  an  ig- 
norant man  is  reading  any  book,  he  is  doing  rather 


THOMAS  CARLYLE 


better  than  nothing  at  all.  I  must  entirely  call  that 
in  question ;  I  even  venture  to  deny  that.  It  would 
be  much  safer  and  better  for  many  a  reader,  that 
he  had  no  concern  with  books  at  all.  There  is  a 
number,  a  frightfully  increasing  number,  of  books 
that  are  decidedly,  to  the  readers  of  them,  not  use- 
ful. But  an  ingenious  reader  will  learn,  also,  that 
a  certain  number  of  books  were  written  by  a  su- 
premely noble  kind  of  people, — not  a  very  great 
number  of  books,  but  still  a  number  fit  to  occupy 
all  your  reading  industry,  do  adhere  more  or  less 
to  that  side  of  things.  In  short,  as  I  have  written 
it  down  somewhere  else,  I  conceive  that  books  are 
like  men's  souls:  divided  into  sheep  and  goats. 
Some  few  are  going  up,  and  carrying  us  up,  heav- 
enward ;  calculated,  I  mean,  to  be  of  priceless  ad- 
vantage in  teaching, — in  forwarding  the  teaching 
of  all  generations.  Others,  a  frightful  multitude, 
are  going  down,  down ;  doing  ever  the  more  and 
the  wider  and  the  wilder  mischief. 

EDINBURGH  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 


ISAAC  DISRAELI 


Isaac  D' Israeli 


M.ANY  ingenious  readers  complain  that  their 
memory  is  defective,  and  their  studies  unfruitful. 
This  defect  arises  from  their  indulging  the  facile 
pleasures  of  perceptions,  in  preference  to  the  labo- 
rious habit  of  forming  them  into  ideas.  Percep- 
tions require  only  the  sensibility  of  taste,  and 
their  pleasures  are  continuous,  easy,  and  exqui- 
site. Ideas  are  an  art  of  combination,  and  an  ex- 
ertion of  the  reasoning  powers.  Ideas  are  there- 
fore labours ;  and  for  those  who  will  not  labour,  it 
is  unjust  to  complain,  if  they  come  from  the  har- 
vest with  scarcely  a  sheaf  in  their  hands.  .  .  . 

It  is  an  observation  of  the  elder  Pliny  .  .  .  that 
there  was  no  book  so  bad  but  which  contained 
something  good.  To  read  every  book  would,  how- 
ever, be  fatal  to  the  interest  of  most  readers ;  but 
it  is  not  always  necessary,  in  the  pursuits  of  learn- 
ing, to  read  every  book  entire.  Of  many  books 
it  is  sufficient  to  seize  the  plan,  and  to  examine 

31 


RIGHT  READING 


some  of  their  portions.  Of  the  little  supplement  at 
the  close  of  a  volume,  few  readers  conceive  the 
utility ;  but  some  of  the  most  eminent  writers  in 
Europe  have  been  great  adepts  in  the  art  of  in- 
dex-reading. I,  for  my  part,  venerate  the  inventor 
of  indexes.  .  .  . 

A  reader  is  too  often  a  prisoner  attached  to  the 
triumphal  car  of  an  author  of  great  celebrity ;  and 
when  he  ventures  not  to  judge  for  himself,  con- 
ceives, while  he  is  reading  the  indifferent  works 
of  great  authors,  that  the  languor  which  he  ex- 
periences arises  from  his  own  defective  taste.  But 
the  best  writers,  when  they  are  voluminous,  have 
a  great  deal  of  mediocrity. 

On  the  other  side,  readers  must  not  imagine 
that  all  the  pleasures  of  composition  depend  on 
the  author ;  for  there  is  something  which  a  reader 
himself  must  bring  to  the  book,  that  the  book 
may  please.  There  is  a  literary  appetite  which  the 
author  can  no  more  impart,  than  the  most  skilful 
cook  can  give  an  appetency  to  the  guests.  When 
Cardinal  Richelieu  said  to  Godeau,  that  he  did 
not  understand  his  verses,  the  honest  poet  replied, 
that  it  was  not  his  fault.  It  would  indeed  be  very 


ISAAC  DISRAELI 


unreasonable,  when  a  painter  exhibits  his  pictures 
in  public,  to  expect  that  he  should  provide  spec- 
tacles for  the  use  of  the  short-sighted.  Every  man 
must  come  prepared  as  well  as  he  can.  Simonides 
confessed  himself  incapable  of  deceiving  stupid 
persons ;  and  Balzac  remarked  of  the  girls  of  his 
village,  that  they  were  too  silly  to  be  duped  by  a 
man  of  wit.  Dulness  is  impenetrable;  and  there 
are  hours  when  the  liveliest  taste  loses  its  sensi- 
bility. The  temporary  tone  of  the  mind  may  be 
unfavourable  to  taste  a  work  properly,  and  we 
have  had  many  erroneous  criticisms  from  great 
men,  which  may  often  be  attributed  to  this  cir- 
cumstance. The  mind  communicates  its  infirm 
dispositions  to  the  book,  and  an  author  has  not 
only  his  own  defects  to  account  for,  but  also  those 
of  his  reader.  There  is  something  in  composition, 
like  the  game  of  shuttlecock,  where,  if  the  reader 
does  not  quickly  rebound  the  feathered  cork  to 
the  author,  the  game  is  destroyed,  and  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  work  falls  extinct.  .  .  . 

A  frequent  impediment  in  reading  is  a  disincli- 
nation in  the  mind  to  settle  on  the  subject;  agi- 
tated by  incongruous  and  dissimilar  ideas,  it  is 


33 


RIGHT  READING 


with  pain  that  we  admit  those  of  the  author.  But 
on  applying  ourselves  with  a  gentle  violence  to  the 
perusal  of  an  interesting  work,  the  mind  soon  as- 
similates to  the  subject;  the  ancient  Rabbins  ad- 
vised their  young  students  to  apply  themselves 
to  their  readings,  whether  they  felt  an  inclination 
or  not,  because,  as  they  proceeded,  they  would 
find  their  disposition  restored  and  their  curiosity 
awakened. 

Readers  may  be  classed  into  an  infinite  number 
of  divisions;  but  an  author  is  a  solitary  being, 
who,  for  the  same  reason  he  pleases  one,  must 
consequently  displease  another.  To  have  too  ex- 
alted a  genius  is  more  prejudicial  to  his  celebrity 
than  to  have  a  moderate  one;  for  we  shall  find 
that  the  most  popular  works  are  not  the  most 
profound,  but  such  as  instruct  those  who  require 
instruction,  and  charm  those  who  are  not  learned 
to  taste  their  novelty.  .  .  . 

Authors  are  vain,  but  readers  are  capricious. 
Some  will  only  read  old  books,  as  if  there  were 
no  valuable  truths  to  be  discovered  in  modern 
publications;  while  others  will  only  read  new 
books,  as  if  some  valuable  truths  are  not  among 


34 


ISAAC  D'ISRAELI 


the  old.  Some  will  not  read  a  book  because  they 
are  acquainted  with  the  author:  by  which  the 
reader  may  be  more  injured  than  the  author; 
others  not  only  read  the  book,  but  would  also 
read  the  man:  by  which  the  most  ingenious 
author  may  be  injured  by  the  most  impertinent 
reader. 

LITERARY  MISCELLANIES 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 


Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 


J.  HERE  are  books ;  and  it  is  practicable  to  read 
them,  because  they  are  so  few.  We  look  over  with 
a  sigh  the  monumental  libraries  of  Paris,  of  the 
Vatican,  and  the  British  Museum.  In  1858,  the 
number  of  printed  books  in  the  Imperial  Library 
at  Paris  was  estimated  at  eight  hundred  thou- 
sand volumes,  with  an  annual  increase  of  twelve 
thousand  volumes ;  so  that  the  number  of  printed 
books  extant  to-day  may  easily  exceed  a  million. 
It  is  easy  to  count  the  number  of  pages  which 
a  diligent  man  can  read  in  a  day,  and  the  num- 
ber of  years  which  human  life  in  favourable  cir- 
cumstances allows  to  reading ;  and  to  demonstrate 
that  though  he  should  read  from  dawn  till  dark, 
for  sixty  years,  he  must  die  in  the  first  alcoves. 
But  nothing  can  be  more  deceptive  than  this  arith- 
metic, where  none  but  a  natural  method  is  really 
pertinent.  I  visit  occasionally  the  Cambridge  Li- 
brary, and  I  can  seldom  go  there  without  renew- 

39 


RIGHT  READING 


ing  the  conviction  that  the  best  of  it  all  is  already 
within  the  four  walls  of  my  study  at  home.  The 
inspection  of  the  catalogue  brings  me  continually 
back  to  the  few  standard  writers  who  are  on  every 
private  shelf;  and  to  these  it  can  afford  only  the 
most  slight  and  casual  additions.  The  crowds  and 
centuries  of  books  are  only  commentary  and  elu- 
cidation, echoes  and  weakeners  of  these  few  great 
voices  of  time. 

The  best  rule  of  reading  will  be  a  method  from 
nature,  and  not  a  mechanical  one  of  hours  and 
pages.  It  holds  each  student  to  a  pursuit  of  his 
native  aim,  instead  of  a  desultory  miscellany.  Let 
him  read  what  is  proper  to  him,  and  not  waste 
his  memory  on  a  crowd  of  mediocrities.  As  whole 
nations  have  derived  their  culture  from  a  single 
book, — as  the  Bible  has  been  the  literature  as 
well  as  the  religion  of  large  portions  of  Europe; 
as  Hafiz  was  the  eminent  genius  of  the  Persians, 
Confucius  of  the  Chinese,  Cervantes  of  the  Span- 
iards; so,  perhaps,  the  human  mind  would  be  a 
gainer  if  all  the  secondary  writers  were  lost, — 
say,  in  England,  all  but  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and 
Bacon, — through  the  profounder  study  so  drawn 


40 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON 

to  those  wonderful  minds.  With  this  pilot  of  his 
own  genius,  let  the  student  read  one,  or  let  him 
read  many,  he  will  read  advantageously.  Dr. 
Johnson  said:  "Whilst  you  stand  deliberating 
which  book  your  son  shall  read  first,  another  boy 
has  read  both:  read  anything  five  hours  a  day, 
and  you  will  soon  be  learned." 

Nature  is  much  our  friend  in  this  matter.  Nature 
is  always  clarifying  her  water  and  her  wine.  No 
filtration  can  be  so  perfect.  She  does  the  same 
thing  by  books  as  by  her  gases  and  plants.  There 
is  always  a  selection  in  writers,  and  then  a  selec- 
tion from  the  selection.  In  the  first  place,  all  books 
that  get  fairly  into  the  vital  air  of  the  world  were 
written  by  the  successful  class,  by  the  affirming 
and  advancing  class,  who  utter  what  tens  of  thou- 
sands feel  though  they  cannot  say.  There  has 
already  been  a  scrutiny  and  choice  from  many 
hundreds  of  young  pens  before  the  pamphlet  or 
political  chapter  which  you  read  in  a  fugitive  jour- 
nal comes  to  your  eye.  All  these  are  young  ad- 
venturers, who  produce  their  performance  to  the 
wise  ear  of  Time,  who  sits  and  weighs,  and,  ten 
years  hence,  out  of  a  million  of  pages  reprints 


RIGHT  READING 


one.  Again  it  is  judged,  it  is  winnowed  by  all  the 
winds  of  opinion,  and  what  terrific  selection  has 
not  passed  on  it  before  it  can  be  reprinted  after 
twenty  years ;  —  and  reprinted  after  a  century !  — 
it  is  as  if  Minos  and  Rhadamanthus  had  indorsed 
the  writing.  Tis  therefore  an  economy  of  time  to 
read  old  and  famed  books.  Nothing  can  be  pre- 
served which  is  not  good ;  and  I  know  beforehand 
that  Pindar,  Martial,  Terence,  Galen,  Kepler, 
Galileo,  Bacon,  Erasmus,  More,  will  be  superior 
to  the  average  intellect.  In  contemporaries,  it  is 
not  so  easy  to  distinguish  betwixt  notoriety  and 
fame. 

Be  sure  then  to  read  no  mean  books.  Shun  the 
spawn  of  the  press  on  the  gossip  of  the  hour.  Do 
not  read  what  you  shall  learn,  without  asking,  in 
the  street  and  the  train.  Dr.  Johnson  said  "he 
always  went  into  stately  shops";  and  good  travel- 
lers stop  at  the  best  hotels ;  for  though  they  cost 
more,  they  do  not  cost  much  more,  and  there  is 
the  good  company  and  the  best  information.  In 
like  manner  the  scholar  knows  that  the  famed 
books  contain,  first  and  last,  the  best  thoughts 
and  facts.  Now  and  then,  by  rarest  luck,  in  some 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 

foolish  Grub  Street  is  the  gem  we  want.  But  in 
the  best  circles  is  the  best  information.  If  you 
should  transfer  the  amount  of  your  reading  day 
by  day  from  the  newspaper  to  the  standard  au- 
thors  But  who  dare  speak  of  such  a  thing? 

The  three  practical  rules,  then,  which  I  have  to 
offer,  are,  —  1.  Never  read  any  book  that  is  not 
a  year  old.  2.  Never  read  any  but  famed  books. 
3.  Never  read  any  but  what  you  like ;  or,  in  Shake- 
speare's phrase,  — 

"  No  profit  goes  where  is  no  pleasure  ta'en : 
In  brief,  sir,  study  what  you  most  affect." 
SOCIETY  AND  SOLITUDE 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER 


Arthur  Schopenhauer 


J.T  is  in  literature  as  in  life :  wherever  you  turn, 
you  stumble  at  once  upon  the  incorrigible  mob 
of  humanity,  swarming  in  all  directions,  crowd- 
ing and  soiling  everything,  like  flies  in  summer. 
Hence  the  number,  which  no  man  can  count,  of 
bad  books,  those  rank  weeds  of  literature,  which 
draw  nourishment  from  the  corn  and  choke  it. 
The  time,  money,  and  attention  of  the  public, 
which  rightfully  belong  to  good  books  and  their 
noble  aims,  they  take  for  themselves :  they  are 
written  for  the  mere  purpose  of  making  money  or 
procuring  places.  So  they  are  not  only  useless,  — 
they  do  positive  mischief.  .  .  . 

Hence,  in  regard  to  reading,  it  is  a  very  impor- 
tant thing  to  be  able  to  refrain.  Skill  in  doing  so 
consists  in  not  taking  into  one's  hands  any  book 
merely  because  at  the  time  it  happens  to  be  ex- 
tensively read ;  such  as  political  or  religious  pam- 
phlets, novels,  poetry,  and  the  like,  which  make 

47 


RIGHT  READING 


a  noise,  and  may  even  attain  to  several  editions  in 
the  first  and  last  year  of  their  existence.  Consider, 
rather,  that  the  man  who  writes  for  fools  is  always 
sure  of  a  large  audience ;  be  careful  to  limit  your 
time  for  reading,  and  devote  it  exclusively  to  the 
works  of  those  great  minds  of  all  times  and  coun- 
tries, who  o'ertop  the  rest  of  humanity,  those 
whom  the  voice  of  fame  points  to  as  such.  These 
alone  really  educate  and  instruct.  You  can  never 
read  bad  literature  too  little,  nor  good  literature 
too  much.  Bad  books  are  intellectual  poison ;  they 
destroy  the  mind.  Because  people  always  read 
what  is  new  instead  of  the  best  of  all  ages,  writers 
remain  in  the  narrow  circle  of  the  ideas  which 
happen  to  prevail  in  their  time ;  and  so  the  period 
sinks  deeper  and  deeper  into  its  own  mire. 

When  we  read,  another  person  thinks  for  us: 
we  merely  repeat  his  mental  process.  In  learning 
to  write,  the  pupil  goes  over  with  his  pen  what 
the  teacher  has  outlined  in  pencil :  so  in  reading ; 
the  greater  part  of  the  work  of  thought  is  already 
done  for  us.  This  is  why  it  relieves  us  to  take  up  a 
book  after  being  occupied  with  our  own  thoughts. 


48 


ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER 

And  in  reading,  the  mind  is,  in  fact,  only  the 
playground  of  another's  thoughts.  So  it  comes 
about  that  if  anyone  spends  almost  the  whole  day 
in  reading,  and  by  way  of  relaxation  devotes  the 
intervals  to  some  thoughtless  pastime,  he  gradu- 
ally loses  the  capacity  for  thinking;  just  as  the 
man  who  always  rides,  at  last  forgets  how  to 
walk.  This  is  the  case  with  many  learned  persons ; 
they  have  read  themselves  stupid.  For  to  occupy 
every  spare  moment  in  reading,  and  to  do  noth- 
ing but  read,  is  even  more  paralyzing  to  the  mind 
than  constant  manual  labour,  which  at  least  allows 
those  engaged  in  it  to  follow  their  own  thoughts. 
A  spring  never  free  from  the  pressure  of  some 
foreign  body  at  last  loses  its  elasticity:  and  so 
does  the  mind  if  other  people's  thoughts  are  con- 
stantly forced  upon  it.  Just  as  you  can  ruin  the 
stomach  and  impair  the  whole  body  by  taking  too 
much  nourishment,  so  you  can  overfill  and  choke 
the  mind  by  feeding  it  too  much.  The  more  you 
read,  the  fewer  are  the  traces  left  by  what  you 
have  read ;  the  mind  becomes  like  a  tablet  crossed 
over  and  over  with  writing.  There  is  no  time  for 
ruminating,  and  in  no  other  way  can  you  assimi- 


49 


RIGHT  READING 


late  what  you  have  read.  If  you  read  on  and  on 
without  setting  your  own  thoughts  to  work,  what 
you  have  read  cannot  strike  root,  and  is  generally 
lost.  It  is,  in  fact,  just  the  same  with  mental  as 
with  bodily  food:  hardly  the  fifth  part  of  what 
one  takes  is  assimilated.  The  rest  passes  off  in 
evaporation,  respiration,  and  the  like. 

The  result  of  all  this  is  that  thoughts  put  on 
paper  are  nothing  more  than  footsteps  in  the 
sand;  you  see  the  way  the  man  has  gone,  but 
to  know  what  he  saw  on  his  walk,  you  want  his 
eyes. 

RELIGION  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 
(Translated  by  T.  Bailey  Saunders) 


50 


JOHN  RUSKIN 


John  Ruskin 


Al.L  books  are  divisible  into  two  classes, — the 
books  of  the  hour,  and  the  books  of  all  time. 
Mark  this  distinction;  it  is  not  one  of  quality 
only.  It  is  not  merely  the  bad  book  that  does  not 
last,  and  the  good  one  that  does ;  it  is  a  distinction 
of  species.  There  are  good  books  for  the  hour,  and 
good  ones  for  all  time;  bad  books  for  the  hour, 
and  bad  ones  for  all  time.  I  must  define  the  two 
kinds  before  I  go  farther. 

The  good  book  of  the  hour,  then,— I  do  not 
speak  of  the  bad  ones,— is  simply  the  useful  or 
pleasant  talk  of  some  person  whom  you  cannot 
otherwise  converse  with,  printed  for  you.  Very 
useful  often,  telling  you  what  you  need  to  know ; 
very  pleasant  often,  as  a  sensible  friend's  present 
talk  would  be.  These  bright  accounts  of  travels ; 
good-humoured  and  witty  discussions  of  question ; 
lively  or  pathetic  story-telling  in  the  form  of 
novel;  firm  fact-telling,  by  the  real  agents  con- 

63 


RIGHT  READING 


cerned  in  the  events  of  passing  history; — all  these 
books  of  the  hour,  multiplying  among  us  as  edu- 
cation becomes  more  general,  are  a  peculiar  pos- 
session of  the  present  age.  We  ought  to  be  en- 
tirely thankful  for  them,  and  entirely  ashamed  of 
ourselves  if  we  make  no  good  use  of  them.  But 
we  make  the  worst  possible  use  if  we  allow  them 
to  usurp  the  place  of  true  books;  for  strictly 
speaking,  they  are  not  books  at  all,  but  merely 
letters  or  newspapers  in  good  print.  Our  friend's 
letter  may  be  delightful  or  necessary  to-day, — 
whether  worth  keeping  or  not,  is  to  be  considered. 
The  newspaper  may  be  entirely  proper  at  break- 
fast-time, but  assuredly  it  is  not  reading  for  all 
day ;  so,  though  bound  up  in  a  volume,  the  long 
letter  which  gives  you  so  pleasant  an  account  of 
the  inns  and  roads  and  weather  last  year  at  such 
a  place,  or  which  tells  you  that  amusing  story, 
or  gives  you  the  real  circumstances  of  such  and 
such  events,  however  valuable  for  occasional  refer- 
ence, may  not  be  in  the  real  sense  of  the  word,  a 
"book"  at  all,  nor,  in  the  real  sense,  to  be  "read." 
A  book  is  essentially  not  a  talked  thing,  but  a 
written  thing,  and  written  not  with  a  view  of 


54, 


JOHN  RUSKIN 


mere  communication,  but  of  permanence,  The 
book  of  talk  is  printed  only  because  its  author 
cannot  speak  to  thousands  of  people  at  once ;  if 
he  could  he  would, — the  volume  is  mere  multipli- 
cation of  his  voice.  You  cannot  talk  to  your  friend 
in  India;  if  you  could,  you  would.  You  write  in- 
stead ;  that  is  mere  conveyance  of  voice.  But  a  book 
is  written,  not  to  multiply  the  voice  merely,  not 
to  carry  it  merely,  but  to  perpetuate  it.  The  au- 
thor has  something  to  say  which  he  perceives  to 
be  true  and  useful,  or  helpfully  beautiful.  So  far 
as  he  knows,  no  one  has  yet  said  it ;  so  far  as  he 
knows,  no  one  else  can  say  it.  He  is  bound  to 
say  it  clearly  and  melodiously  if  he  may ;  clearly, 
at  all  events.  In  the  sum  of  his  life  he  finds  this  to 
be  the  thing  or  group  of  things  manifest  to  him, — 
this,  the  piece  of  true  knowledge  or  sight  which 
his  share  of  sunshine  and  earth  has  permitted  him 
to  seize.  He  would  fain  set  it  down  forever,  en- 
grave it  on  rock  if  he  could,  saying,  "This  is 
the  best  of  me  ;  for  the  rest,  I  ate  and  drank  and 
slept,  loved  and  hated,  like  another.  My  life  was 
as  the  vapour,  and  is  not ;  but  this  I  saw  and  knew, 
— this,  if  anything  of  mine,  is  worth  your  mem- 


RIGHT  READING 


ory."  This  is  his  "writing";  it  is  in  his  small  hu- 
man way,  and  with  whatever  degree  of  true  in- 
spiration is  in  him,  his  inscription  or  scripture. 
That  is  a  "Book."  .  .  . 

Now,  books  of  this  kind  have  been  written  in 
all  ages  by  their  greatest  men, — by  great  readers, 
great  statesmen,  and  great  thinkers.  These  are 
all  at  your  choice;  and  Life  is  short.  You  have 
heard  as  much  before;  yet  have  you  measured 
and  mapped  out  this  short  life  and  its  possibili- 
ties? Do  you  know,  if  you  read  this,  that  you 
cannot  read  that ;  that  what  you  lose  to-day  you 
cannot  gain  to-morrow?  Will  you  go  and  gossip 
with  your  housemaid  or  your  stable-boy,  when 
you  may  talk  with  queens  and  kings;  or  flatter 
yourselves  that  it  is  with  any  worthy  conscious- 
ness of  your  own  claims  to  respect  that  you  jostle 
with  the  hungry  and  common  crowd  for  entree 
here,  and  audience  there,  when  all  the  while 
this  eternal  court  is  open  to  you,  with  its  society, 
wide  as  the  world,  multitudinous  as  its  days, — 
the  chosen  and  the  mighty  of  every  place  and 
time?  Into  that  you  may  enter  always;  in  that 
you  may  take  fellowship  and  rank  according  to 


56 


JOHN  RUSKIN 


your  wish;  from  that,  once  entered  into  it,  you 
can  never  be  an  outcast  but  by  your  own  fault; 
by  your  aristocracy  of  companionship  there,  your 
own  inherent  aristocracy  will  be  assuredly  tested, 
and  the  motives  with  which  you  strive  to  take 
high  place  in  the  society  of  the  living,  measured, 
as  to  all  the  truth  and  sincerity  that  are  in  them, 
by  the  place  you  desire  to  take  in  this  company 
of  the  dead. 

"The  place  you  desire,"  and  the  place  you  fit 
yourself  for,  I  must  also  say,  because,  observe, 
this  court  of  the  past  differs  from  all  living  aristoc- 
racy in  this, — it  is  open  to  labour  and  to  merit, 
but  to  nothing  else.  No  wealth  will  bribe,  no  name 
overawe,  no  artifice  deceive,  the  guardian  of  those 
Elysian  gates.  In  the  deep  sense,  no  vile  or  vulgar 
person  ever  enters  there.  At  the  portieres  of  that 
silent  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  there  is  but  brief 
question :  "Do  you  deserve  to  enter?  Pass.  Do  you 
ask  to  be  the  companion  of  nobles  ?  Make  yourself 
noble,  and  you  shall  be.  Do  you  long  for  the  con- 
versation of  the  wise?  Learn  to  understand  it,  and 
you  shall  hear  it.  But  on  other  terms? — No.  If  you 
will  not  rise  to  us,  we  cannot  stoop  to  you.  The 


57 


RIGHT  READING 


living  lord  may  assume  courtesy,  the  living  philoso- 
pher explain  his  thought  to  you  with  considerate 
pain ;  but  here  we  neither  feign  nor  interpret.  You 
must  rise  to  the  level  of  our  thoughts  if  you  would 
be  gladdened  by  them,  and  share  our  feelings  if 
you  would  recognize  our  presence." 

This,  then,  is  what  you  have  to  do,  and  I  admit 
that  it  is  much.  You  must,  in  a  word,  love  these 
people,  if  you  are  to  be  among  them.  No  ambition 
is  of  any  use.  They  scorn  your  ambition.  You  must 
love  them,  and  show  your  love  ...  by  a  true  de- 
sire to  be  taught  by  them,  and  to  enter  into  their 
thoughts.  To  enter  into  theirs,  observe,  not  to  find 
your  own  expressed  by  them.  If  the  person  who 
wrote  the  book  is  not  wiser  than  you,  you  need 
not  read  it ;  if  he  be,  he  will  think  differently  from 
you  in  many  respects. 

Very  ready  we  are  to  say  of  a  book,  "How  good 
this  is,— that 's  exactly  what  I  think ! "  But  the  right 
feeling  is,  "How  strange  that  is !  I  never  thought 
of  that  before,  and  yet  I  see  it  is  true ;  or  if  I  do 
not  now,  I  hope  I  shall  some  day."  But  whether 
thus  submissively  or  not,  at  least  be  sure  that  you 
go  to  the  author  to  get  at  his  meaning,  not  to  find 


58 


JOHN  RUSKIN 


yours.  Judge  it  afterward  if  you  think  yourself 
qualified  to  do  so ;  but  ascertain  it  first.  And  be 
sure  also,  if  the  author  is  worth  anything,  that 
you  will  not  get  at  his  meaning  all  at  once,  — nay, 
that  at  his  whole  meaning  you  will  not  for  a  long 
time  arrive  in  any  wise.  Not  that  he  does  not  say 
what  he  means,  and  in  strong  words  too ;  but  he 
cannot  say  it  all,  and  what  is  more  strange,  will 
not,  but  in  a  hidden  way  and  in  parable,  in  order 
that  he  may  be  sure  you  want  it.  I  cannot  quite 
see  the  reason  of  this,  nor  analyze  that  cruel  reti- 
cence in  the  breasts  of  wise  men  which  makes 
them  always  hide  their  deeper  thought.  They  do 
not  give  it  you  by  way  of  help,  but  of  reward,  and 
will  make  themselves  sure  that  you  deserve  it  be- 
fore they  allow  you  to  reach  it.  But  it  is  the  same 
with  the  physical  type  of  wisdom,  gold.  There 
seems,  to  you  and  me,  no  reason  why  the  elec- 
tric forces  of  the  earth  should  not  carry  whatever 
there  is  of  gold  within  it  at  once  to  the  mountain- 
tops;  so  that  kings  and  people  might  know  that 
all  the  gold  they  could  get  was  there,  and  without 
any  trouble  of  digging,  or  anxiety,  or  chance,  or 
waste  of  time,  cut  it  away,  and  coin  as  much  as 


59 


RIGHT  READING 


they  needed.  But  Nature  does  not  manage  it  so. 
She  puts  it  in  little  fissures  in  the  earth,  nobody 
knows  where ;  you  may  dig  long  and  find  none ; 
you  must  dig  painfully  to  find  any. 

And  it  is  just  the  same  with  men's  best  wisdom. 
When  you  come  to  a  good  book,  you  must  ask 
yourself,  "Am  I  inclined  to  work  as  an  Australian 
miner  would?  Are  my  pickaxes  and  shovels  in 
good  order,  and  am  I  in  good  trim,  myself,  my 
sleeves  well  up  to  the  elbow,  and  my  breath  good, 
and  my  temper?"  And  keeping  the  figure  a  little 
longer,  even  at  a  cost  of  tiresomeness,  for  it  is  a 
thoroughly  useful  one,  the  metal  you  are  in  search 
of  being  the  author's  mind  or  meaning,  his  words 
are  as  the  rock  which  you  have  to  crush  and  smelt 
in  order  to  get  at  it.  And  your  pickaxes  are  your 
own  care,  wit,  and  learning;  your  smelting  fur- 
nace is  your  own  thoughtful  soul.  Do  not  hope  to 
get  at  any  good  author's  meaning  without  those 
tools  and  that  fire ;  often  you  will  need  sharpest, 
finest  chiselling  and  patientest  fusing,  before  you 
can  gather  one  grain  of  the  metal. 

SESAME  AND  LILIES 


60 


JOHN  RUSKIN 


J.T  is  of  the  greatest  importance  to  you,  not  only 
for  art's  sake,  but  for  all  kinds  of  sake,  in  these 
days  of  book  deluge,  to  keep  out  of  the  salt 
swamps  of  literature,  and  live  on  a  little  rocky 
island  of  your  own,  with  a  spring  and  a  lake  in 
it,  pure  and  good.  I  cannot,  of  course,  suggest  the 
choice  of  your  library  to  you,  for  every  several 
mind  needs  different  books;  but  there  are  some 
books  which  we  all  need,  and  assuredly,  if  you 
read  Homer,  Plato,  jEschylus,  Herodotus,  Dante, 
Shakespeare,  and  Spenser  as  much  as  you  ought, 
you  will  not  require  wide  enlargement  of  shelves 
to  right  and  left  of  them  for  purposes  of  perpetual 
study.  .  .  .  Avoid  especially  that  class  of  litera- 
ture which  has  a  knowing  tone;  it  is  the  most 
poisonous  of  all.  Every  good  book,  or  piece  of 
book,  is  full  of  admiration  and  awe ;  it  may  con- 
tain firm  assertion,  or  stern  satire,  but  it  never 
sneers  coldly,  nor  asserts  haughtily,  and  it  always 
leads  you  to  reverence  or  love  something  with 
your  whole  heart.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  distin- 
guish the  satire  of  the  venomous  race  of  books 
from  the  satire  of  the  noble  and  pure  ones ;  but  in 

61 


RIGHT  READING 


general  you  may  notice  that  the  cold-blooded 
Crustacean  and  Batrachian  books  will  sneer  at 
sentiment;  and  the  warm-blooded,  human  books, 
at  sin.  ...  A  common  book  will  often  give  you 
much  amusement,  but  it  is  only  a  noble  book 
which  will  give  you  dear  friends.  Remember  also 
that  it  is  of  less  importance  to  you  in  your  earlier 
years,  that  the  books  you  read  should  be  clever 
than  that  they  should  be  right.  I  do  not  mean  op- 
pressively or  repulsively  instructive ;  but  that  the 
thoughts  they  express  should  be  just,  and  the  feel- 
ings they  excite  generous.  It  is  not  necessary  for 
you  to  read  the  wittiest  or  the  most  suggestive 
books ;  it  is  better,  in  general,  to  hear  what  is  al- 
ready known,  and  may  be  simply  said.  Much  of 
the  literature  of  the  present  day,  though  good  to 
be  read  by  persons  of  ripe  age,  has  a  tendency  to 
agitate  rather  than  confirm,  and  leaves  its  readers 
too  frequently  in  a  helpless  or  hopeless  indigna- 
tion, the  worst  possible  state  into  which  the  mind 
of  youth  can  be  thrown.  It  may,  indeed,  become 
necessary  for  you,  as  you  advance  in  life,  to  set 
your  hand  to  things  that  need  to  be  altered  in  the 
world,  or  apply  your  heart  chiefly  to  what  must 


JOHN  RUSKIN 


be  pitied  in  it,  or  condemned;  but,  for  a  young 
person,  the  safest  temper  is  one  of  reverence,  and 
the  safest  place  one  of  obscurity.  Certainly  at 
present,  and  perhaps  through  all  your  life,  your 
teachers  are  wisest  when  they  make  you  content 
in  quiet  virtue,  and  that  literature  and  art  are  best 
for  you  which  point  out,  in  common  life  and  fa- 
miliar things,  the  objects  for  hopeful  labour,  and 
for  humble  love. 

THE  ELEMENTS  OF  DRAWING 


63 


JULIUS  CHARLES  HARE 


Julius  Charles  Hare 


J_HE  difference  between  desultory  reading  and 
a  course  of  study  may  be  illustrated  by  comparing 
the  former  to  a  number  of  mirrors  set  in  a  straight 
line,  so  that  every  one  of  them  reflects  a  different 
object,  the  latter  to  the  same  mirrors  so  skilfully 
arranged  as  to  perpetuate  one  set  of  objects  in  an 
endless  series  of  reflections. 

If  we  read  two  books  on  the  same  subject,  the 
second  leads  us  to  review  the  statements  and  ar- 
guments of  the  first ;  the  errors  of  which  are  little 
likely  to  escape  this  kind  of  proving,  if  I  may  so 
call  it;  while  the  truths  are  more  strongly  im- 
printed on  the  memory,  not  merely  by  repetition, 
—  though  that  too  is  of  use,— but  by  the  deeper 
conviction  thus  wrought  into  the  mind,  of  their 
being  verily  and  indeed  truths.  .  .  . 

Desultory  reading  is  indeed  very  mischiev- 
ous, by  fostering  habits  of  loose,  discontinuous 
thought,  by  turning  the  memory  into  a  common 

67 


RIGHT  READING 


sewer  for  rubbish  of  all  sorts  to  float  through,  and 
by  relaxing  the  power  of  attention,  which  of  all 
our  faculties  most  needs  care,  and  is  most  im- 
proved by  it.  But  a  well-regulated  course  of  study 
will  no  more  weaken  the  mind  than  hard  exercise 
will  weaken  the  body;  nor  will  a  strong  under- 
standing be  weighed  down  by  its  knowledge,  any 
more  than  an  oak  is  by  its  leaves,  or  than  Samson 
was  by  his  locks.  He  whose  sinews  are  drained  by 
his  hair,  must  already  be  a  weakling.  .  .  . 

Suppose  a  person  to  have  studied  Xenophon 
and  Thucydides,  till  he  has  attained  to  the  same 
thorough  comprehension  of  them  both ;  and  this  is 
so  far  from  being  an  unwarrantable  supposition, 
that  the  very  difficulties  of  Thucydides  tempt  and 
stimulate  an  intelligent  reader  to  form  a  more  in- 
timate acquaintance  with  him :  which  of  the  two 
will  have  strengthened  the  student's  mind  the 
most?  from  which  will  he  have  derived  the  richest 
and  most  lasting  treasures  of  thought?  Who,  that 
has  made  friends  with  Dante,  has  not  had  his  in- 
tellect nerved  and  expanded  by  following  the  pil- 
grim through  his  triple  world?  and  would  Tasso 
have  done  as  much  for  him?  The  labour  itself 


68 


JULIUS   CHARLES   HARE 


which  must  be  spent  in  order  to  understand  Soph- 
ocles or  Shakespeare,  to  search  out  their  hidden 
beauties,  to  trace  their  labyrinthine  movements, 
to  dive  into  their  bright,  jewelled  caverns,  and 
converse  with  the  sea-nymphs  that  dwell  there, 
is  its  own  abundant  reward ;  not  merely  from  the 
enjoyment  that  accompanies  it,  but  because  such 
pleasure,  indeed  all  pleasure  that  is  congenial  to 
our  better  nature,  is  refreshing  and  invigorating, 
like  a  draught  of  nectar  from  heaven.  In  such 
studies  we  imitate  the  example  of  the  eagle,  un- 
sealing his  eyesight  by  gazing  at  the  sun.  .  .  . 

For  my  own  part,  I  have  ever  gained  the  most 
profit,  and  the  most  pleasure  also,  from  the  books 
which  have  made  me  think  the  most ;  and,  when 
the  difficulties  have  once  been  overcome,  these  are 
the  books  which  have  struck  the  deepest  root,  not 
only  in  my  memory  and  understanding,  but  like- 
wise in  my  affections.  .  .  .  Above  all,  in  the  pres- 
ent age  of  light  reading,  that  is,  of  reading  has- 
tily, thoughtlessly,  indiscriminately,  unfruitfully, 
when  most  books  are  forgotten  as  soon  as  they 
are  finished,  and  very  many  sooner,  it  is  well  if 
something  heavier  is  cast  now  and  then  into  the 


69 


RIGHT  READING 


midst  of  the  literary  public.  This  may  scare  and 
repel  the  weak;  it  will  rouse  and  attract  the 
stronger,  and  increase  their  strength  by  making 
them  exert  it.  In  the  sweat  of  the  brow  is  the 
mind  as  well  as  the  body  to  eat  its  bread.  Nil 
sine  may  no  Musa  labor  e  dedit  mortalibus. 

GUESSES  AT  TRUTH 


70 


JOHN  MORLEY 


John  Morley 


JV O  sensible  person  can  suppose  for  a  single  mo- 
ment that  everybody  is  born  with  the  ability  for 
using  books,  for  reading  and  studying  literature. 
Certainly  not  everybody  is  born  with  the  capacity 
of  being  a  great  scholar.  All  people  are  no  more 
born  great  scholars  like  Gibbon  and  Bentley,  than 
they  are  all  born  great  musicians  like  Handel  and 
Beethoven.  What  is  much  worse  than  that,  many 
come  into  the  world  with  the  incapacity  of  read- 
ing, just  as  they  come  into  it  with  the  incapacity 
of  distinguishing  one  tune  from  another.  To  them 
I  have  nothing  to  say.  Even  the  morning  paper  is 
too  much  for  them.  They  can  only  skim  the  sur- 
face even  of  that.  I  go  further,  and  frankly  admit 
that  the  habit  and  power  of  reading  with  reflec- 
tion, comprehension,  and  memory  all  alert  and 
awake,  does  not  come  at  once  to  the  natural  man 
any  more  than  many  other  sovereign  virtues  come 
to  that  interesting  creature.  What  I  do  venture  to 

73 


RIGHT   READING 


press  upon  you  is,  that  it  requires  no  preterhuman 
force  of  will  in  any  young  man  or  woman — unless 
household  circumstances  are  more  than  usually 
vexatious  and  unfavourable — to  get  at  least  half 
an  hour  out  of  a  solid  busy  day  for  good  and  dis- 
interested reading.  Some  will  say  that  this  is  too 
much  to  expect,  and  the  first  persons  to  say  it,  I 
venture  to  predict,  will  be  those  who  waste  their 
time  most.  At  any  rate,  if  I  cannot  get  half  an 
hour,  I  will  be  content  with  a  quarter.  Now,  in 
half  an  hour  I  fancy  you  can  read  fifteen  or  twenty 
pages  of  Burke;  or  you  can  read  one  of  Words- 
worth's masterpieces — say  the  lines  on  Tintern; 
or  say,  one-third — if  a  scholar,  in  the  original,  and 
if  not,  in  a  translation — of  a  book  of  the  Iliad  or 
the  JEneid.  I  do  not  think  that  I  am  filling  the  half- 
hour  too  full.  But  try  for  yourselves  what  you  can 
read  in  half  an  hour.  Then  multiply  the  half-hour 
by  365,  and  consider  what  treasures  you  might 
have  laid  by  at  the  end  of  the  year;  and  what 
happiness,  fortitude,  and  wisdom  they  would  have 
given  you  during  all  the  days  of  your  life. 

I  will  not  take  up  your  time  by  explaining  the 
various  mechanical  contrivances  and  aids  to  suc- 


74 


JOHN  MORLEY 


cessful  study.  They  are  not  to  be  despised  by 
those  who  would  extract  the  most  from  books. 
Many  people  think  of  knowledge  as  of  money. 
They  would  like  knowledge,  but  cannot  face  the 
perseverance  and  self-denial  that  go  to  the  acquisi- 
tion of  it.  The  wise  student  will  do  most  of  his 
reading  with  a  pen  or  a  pencil  in  his  hand.  He  will 
not  shrink  from  the  useful  toil  of  making  abstracts 
and  summaries  of  what  he  is  reading.  Sir  William 
Hamilton  was  a  strong  advocate  for  underscoring 
books  of  study.  .  .  .  Again,  some  great  men — 
Gibbon  was  one,  and  Daniel  Webster  was  another, 
and  the  great  Lord  Strafford  was  a  third — always 
before  reading  a  book  made  a  short,  rough  analy- 
sis of  the  questions  which  they  expected  to  be 
answered  in  it,  the  additions  to  be  made  to  their 
knowledge,  and  whither  it  would  take  them.  I 
have  sometimes  tried  that  way  of  steadying  and 
guiding  attention;  and  I  commend  it  to  you.  I 
need  not  tell  you  that  you  will  find  that  most 
books  worth  reading  once  are  worth  reading  twice, 
and — what  is  most  important  of  all — the  master- 
pieces of  literature  are  worth  reading  a  thousand 
times.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  think  that  because 


75 


RIGHT  READING 


you  have  read  a  masterpiece  once  or  twice,  or  ten 
times,  therefore  you  have  done  with  it.  Because  it 
is  a  masterpiece,  you  ought  to  live  with  it,  and 
make  it  part  of  your  daily  life.  Another  practice  is 
that  of  keeping  a  common-place  book,  and  tran- 
scribing into  it  what  is  striking  and  interesting  and 
suggestive.  And  if  you  keep  it  wisely,  as  Locke 
has  taught  us,  you  will  put  every  entry  under  a 
head,  division,  or  subdivision.  This  is  an  excellent 
practice  for  concentrating  your  thought  on  the 
passage  and  making  you  alive  to  its  real  point 
and  significance.  .  .  . 

Various  correspondents  have  asked  me  to  say 
something  about  those  lists  of  a  hundred  books 
that  have  been  circulating  through  the  world 
within  the  last  few  months.  I  have  examined  some 
of  these  lists  with  considerable  care,  and  what- 
ever else  may  be  said  of  them — and  I  speak  of 
them  with  deference  and  reserve,  because  men 
for  whom  one  must  have  a  great  regard  have  com- 
piled them — they  do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  calcu- 
lated either  to  create  or  satisfy  a  wise  taste  for  lit- 
erature in  any  very  worthy  sense.  To  fill  a  man  with 
a  hundred  parcels  of  heterogeneous  scraps,  from 


76 


JOHN  MORLEY 


the  Mahabharata,  and  the  Sheking,  down  to  Pick- 
wick and  White's  Selborne,  may  pass  the  time, 
but  I  cannot  conceive  how  it  would  strengthen  or 
instruct  or  delight.  For  instance,  it  is  a  mistake  to 
think  that  every  book  that  has  a  great  name  in 
the  -history  of  books  or  of  thought  is  worth  read- 
ing. Some  of  the  most  famous  books  are  least 
worth  reading.  Their  fame  was  due  to  their  doing 
something  that  needed  in  their  day  to  be  done. 
The  work  done,  the  virtue  of  the  book  expires. 
Again,  I  agree  with  those  who  say  that  the  steady 
working  down  one  of  these  lists  would  end  in  the 
manufacture  of  that  obnoxious  product — the  prig. 
A  prig  has  been  denned  as  an  animal  that  is  over- 
fed for  its  size.  I  think  that  these  bewildering  mis- 
cellanies would  lead  to  an  immense  quantity  of 
that  kind  of  overfeeding.  The  object  of  reading  is 
not  to  dip  into  everything  that  even  wise  men  have 
ever  written.  In  the  words  of  one  of  the  most  win- 
ning writers  of  English  that  ever  existed — Cardi- 
nal Newman — the  object  of  literature  in  educa- 
tion is  to  open  the  mind,  to  correct  it,  to  refine  it, 
to  enable  it  to  comprehend  and  digest  its  knowl- 
edge, to  give  it  power  over  its  own  faculties, 


77 


RIGHT  READING 


application,  flexibility,  method,  critical  exactness, 
sagacity,  address,  and  expression.  These  are  the 
objects  of  that  intellectual  perfection  which  a 
literary  education  is  destined  to  give.  .  .  . 

Let  me  pass  to  another  topic.  We  are  often 
asked  whether  it  is  best  to  study  subjects,  or  au- 
thors, or  books.  Well,  I  think  that  is  like  most 
of  the  stock  questions  with  which  the  perverse  in- 
genuity of  mankind  torments  itself.  There  is  no 
universal  and  exclusive  answer.  My  own  answer 
is  a  very  plain  one.  It  is  sometimes  best  to  study 
books,  sometimes  authors,  and  sometimes  sub- 
jects ;  but  at  all  times  it  is  best  to  study  authors, 
subjects,  and  books  in  connection  with  one  an- 
other. Whether  you  make  your  first  approach 
from  interest  in  an  author  or  in  a  book,  the  fruit 
will  be  only  half  gathered  if  you  leave  off  without 
new  ideas  and  clearer  lights  both  on  the  man  and 
the  matter.  .  .  . 

This  points  to  the  right  answer  to  another 
question  that  is  constantly  asked.  We  are  con- 
stantly asked  whether  desultory  reading  is  among 
things  lawful  and  permitted.  May  we  browse  at 
large  in  a  library,  as  Johnson  said,  or  is  it  forbid- 


JOHN  MORLEY 


den  to  open  a  book  without  a  definite  aim  and 
fixed  expectations?  I  am  for  a  compromise.  If  a 
man  has  once  got  his  general  point  of  view,  if  he 
has  striven  with  success  to  place  himself  at  the 
centre,  what  follows  is  of  less  consequence.  If  he 
has  got  in  his  head  a  good  map  of  the  country,  he 
may  ramble  at  large  with  impunity.  If  he  has  once 
well  and  truly  laid  the  foundations  of  a  method- 
ical, systematic  habit  of  mind,  what  he  reads  will 
find  its  way  to  its  proper  place.  If  his  intellect  is 
in  good  order,  he  will  find  in  every  quarter  some- 
thing to  assimilate  and  something  that  will  nourish. 
STUDIES  IN  LITERATURE 


79 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 


James  Russell  Lowell 


SOUTHEY  tells  us  that,  in  his  walk  one  stormy 
day,  he  met  an  old  woman,  to  whom,  by  way  of 
greeting,  he  made  the  rather  obvious  remark  that 
it  was  dreadful  weather.  She  answered,  philosoph- 
ically, that,  in  her  opinion,  "any  weather  was 
better  than  none!"  I  should  be  half  inclined  to 
say  that  any  reading  was  better  than  none,  allay- 
ing the  crudeness  of  the  statement  by  the  Yankee 
proverb,  which  tells  us  that,  though  "all  deacons 
are  good,  there 's  odds  in  deacons."  Among  books, 
certainly,  there  is  much  variety  of  company,  rang- 
ing from  the  best  to  the  worst,  from  Plato  to  Zola, 
and  the  first  lesson  in  reading  well  is  that  which 
teaches  us  to  distinguish  between  literature  and 
merely  printed  matter.  The  choice  lies  wholly  with 
ourselves.  We  have  the  key  put  into  our  hands; 
shall  we  unlock  the  pantry  or  the  oratory  ?  There 
is  a  Wallachian  legend  which,  like  most  of  the 
figments  of  popular  fancy,  has  a  moral  in  it.  One 

83 


RIGHT  READING 


Bakala,  a  good-for-nothing  kind  of  fellow  in  his 
way,  having  had  the  luck  to  offer  a  sacrifice  es- 
pecially well  pleasing  to  God,  is  taken  up  into 
heaven.  He  finds  the  Almighty  sitting  in  some- 
thing like  the  best  room  of  a  Wallachian  peasant's 
cottage — there  is  always  a  profound  pathos  in 
the  homeliness  of  the  popular  imagination,  forced, 
like  the  princess  in  the  fairy  tale,  to  weave  its 
semblance  of  gold  tissue  out  of  straw.  On  being 
asked  what  reward  he  desires  for  the  good  service 
he  has  done,  Bakala,  who  had  always  passionately 
longed  to  be  the  owner  of  a  bagpipe,  seeing  a  half 
worn-out  one  lying  among  some  rubbish  in  a  cor- 
ner of  the  room,  begs  eagerly  that  it  may  be  be- 
stowed on  him.  The  Lord,  with  a  smile  of  pity  at 
the  meanness  of  his  choice,  grants  him  his  boon, 
and  Bakdla  goes  back  to  earth  delighted  with 
his  prize.  With  an  infinite  possibility  within  his 
reach,  with  the  choice  of  wisdom,  of  power,  of 
beauty  at  his  tongue's  end,  he  asked  according  to 
his  kind,  and  his  sordid  wish  is  answered  with  a 
gift  as  sordid.  Yes,  there  is  a  choice  in  books  as 
in  friends,  and  the  mind  sinks  or  rises  to  the  level 
of  its  habitual  society,  is  subdued,  as  Shakespeare 


84 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 

says  of  the  dyer's  hand,  to  what  it  works  in. 
Cato's  advice,  cum  bonis  ambula,  consort  with  the 
good,  is  quite  as  true  if  we  extend  it  to  books,  for 
they,  too,  insensibly  give  away  their  own  nature 
to  the  mind  that  converses  with  them.  They  either 
beckon  upwards  or  drag  down.  Du  gleichst  dem 
Oeist  den  du  begreifst,  says  the  World  Spirit  to 
Faust,  and  this  is  true  of  the  ascending  no  less 
than  of  the  descending  scale.  Every  book  we  read 
may  be  made  a  round  in  the  ever-lengthening 
ladder  by  which  we  climb  to  knowledge  and  to 
that  temperance  and  serenity  of  mind  which,  as  it 
is  the  ripest  fruit  of  Wisdom,  is  also  the  sweetest. 
But  this  can  only  be  if  we  read  such  books  as 
make  us  think,  and  read  them  in  such  a  way  as 
helps  them  to  do  so,  that  is,  by  endeavouring  to 
judge  them,  and  thus  to  make  them  an  exercise 
rather  than  a  relaxation  of  the  mind.  Desultory 
reading,  except  as  conscious  pastime,  hebetates 
the  brain  and  slackens  the  bow-string  of  Will.  It 
communicates  as  little  intelligence  as  the  messages 
that  run  along  the  telegraph  wire  to  the  birds  that 
perch  on  it.  ...  A  man  is  known,  says  the  pro- 
verb, by  the  company  he  keeps,  and  not  only  so, 


85 


RIGHT  READING 


but  made  by  it.  Milton  makes  his  fallen  angels 
grow  small  to  enter  the  infernal  council  room,  but 
the  soul,  which  God  meant  to  be  the  spacious 
chamber  where  high  thoughts  and  generous  aspira- 
tions might  commune  together,  shrinks  and  nar- 
rows itself  to  the  measure  of  the  meaner  company 
that  is  wont  to  gather  there,  hatching  conspiracies 
against  our  better  selves.  We  are  apt  to  wonder  at 
the  scholarship  of  the  men  of  three  centuries  ago 
and  at  a  certain  dignity  of  phrase  that  character- 
izes them.  They  were  scholars  because  they  did 
not  read  so  many  things  as  we.  They  had  fewer 
books,  but  these  were  of  the  best.  Their  speech 
was  noble,  because  they  lunched  with  Plutarch 
and  supped  with  Plato.  We  spend  as  much  time 
over  print  as  they  did,  but  instead  of  communing 
with  the  choice  thoughts  of  choice  spirits,  and  un- 
consciously acquiring  the  grand  manner  of  that 
supreme  society,  we  diligently  inform  ourselves, 
and  cover  the  continent  with  a  cobweb  of  tele- 
graphs to  inform  us,  of  such  inspiring  facts  as 
that  a  horse  belonging  to  Mr.  Smith  ran  away  on 
Wednesday,  seriously  damaging  a  valuable  carry- 
all ;  that  a  son  of  Mr.  Brown  swallowed  a  hickory 


86 


JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL 

nut  on  Thursday ;  and  that  a  gravel  bank  caved 
in  and  buried  Mr.  Robinson  alive  on  Friday.  .  .  . 
This  is  the  kind  of  news  we  compass  the  globe 
to  catch,  fresh  from  Bungtown  Centre,  when  we 
might  have  it  fresh  from  heaven  by  the  electric 
lines  of  poet  or  prophet !  .  .  . 

One  is  sometimes  asked  by  young  people  to 
recommend  a  course  of  reading.  My  advice  would 
be  that  they  should  confine  themselves  to  the  su- 
preme books  in  whatever  literature,  or  still  better 
to  choose  some  one  great  author,  and  make  them- 
selves  thoroughly  familiar  with  him.  For,  as  all 
roads  lead  to  Rome,  so  do  they  likewise  lead  away 
from  it,  and  you  will  find  that,  in  order  to  under- 
stand perfectly  and  weigh  exactly  any  vital  piece 
of  literature,  you  will  be  gradually  and  pleasantly 
persuaded  to  excursions  and  explorations  of  which 
you  little  dreamed  when  you  began,  and  will  find 
yourselves  scholars  before  you  are  aware.  For  re- 
member that  there  is  nothing  less  profitable  than 
scholarship  for  the  mere  sake  of  scholarship,  nor 
anything  more  wearisome  in  the  attainment.  But 
the  moment  you  have  a  definite  aim,  attention  is 
quickened,  the  mother  of  memory,  all  that  you 


87 


RIGHT   READING 


acquire  groups  and  arranges  itself  in  an  order  that 
is  lucid,  because  everywhere  and  always  it  is  in 
intelligent  relation  to  a  central  object  of  constant 
and  growing  interest.  This  method  also  forces 
upon  us  the  necessity  of  thinking,  which  is,  after 
all,  the  highest  result  of  all  education.  For  what 
we  want  is  not  learning,  but  knowledge ;  that  is, 
the  power  to  make  learning  answer  its  true  end  as 
a  quickener  of  intelligence  and  a  widener  of  our 
intellectual  sympathies.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
every  one  is  fitted  by  nature  or  inclination  for  a 
definite  course  of  study,  or  indeed  for  serious 
study  in  any  sense.  I  am  quite  willing  that  these 
should  "browse  hi  a  library,"  as  Dr.  Johnson 
called  it,  to  their  hearts'  content.  It  is,  perhaps, 
the  only  way  in  which  time  may  be  profitably 
wasted,  But  desultory  reading  will  not  make  a 
"full  man,"  as  Bacon  understood  it,  of  one  who 
has  not  Johnson's  memory,  his  power  of  assimila- 
tion, and,  above  all,  his  comprehensive  view  of 
the  relations  of  things. 

DEMOCRACY  AND  OTHER  ADDRESSES 


88 


FREDERIC  HARRISON 


Frederic  Harrison 


A.  MAN  of  power,  who  has  got  more  from  books 
than  most  of  his  contemporaries,  once  said :  "Form 
a  habit  of  reading,  do  not  mind  what  you  read; 
the  reading  of  better  books  will  come  when  you 
have  a  habit  of  reading  the  inferior."  We  need 
not  accept  this  obiter  dictum  of  Lord  Sherbrooke. 
A  habit  of  reading  idly  debilitates  and  corrupts 
the  mind  for  all  wholesome  reading ;  the  habit  of 
reading  wisely  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  habits 
to  acquire,  needing  strong  resolution  and  infinite 
pains;  and  reading  for  mere  reading's  sake,  in- 
stead of  for  the  sake  of  the  good  we  gain  from 
reading,  is  one  of  the  worst  and  commonest  and 
most  unwholesome  habits  we  have.  .  .  . 

I  have  no  intention  to  moralize,  or  to  indulge  in 
a  homily  against  the  reading  of  what  is  deliber- 
ately evil.  There  is  not  so  much  need  for  this  now, 
and  I  am  not  discoursing  on  the  whole  duty  of 
man.  I  take  that  part  of  our  reading  which  by  it- 

91 


RIGHT  READING 


self  is  no  doubt  harmless,  entertaining,  and  even 
gently  instructive.  But  of  this  enormous  mass  of 
literature  how  much  deserves  to  be  chosen  out,  to 
be  preferred  to  all  the  great  books  of  the  world,  to 
be  set  apart  for  those  precious  hours  which  are  all 
that  the  most  of  us  can  give  to  solid  reading?  The 
vast  proportion  of  books  are  books  that  we  shall 
never  be  able  to  read.  A  serious  percentage  of 
books  are  not  worth  reading  at  all.  The  really  vi- 
tal books  for  us  we  also  know  to  be  a  very  trifling 
portion  of  the  whole.  And  yet  we  act  as  if  every 
book  were  as  good  as  any  other,  as  if  it  were 
merely  a  question  of  order  which  we  take  up  first, 
as  if  any  book  were  good  enough  for  us,  and  as  if 
all  were  alike  honourable,  precious,  and  satisfying. 
.  .  .  Books  are  not  wiser  than  men,  the  true  books 
are  not  easier  to  find  than  the  true  men,  the  bad 
books  or  the  vulgar  books  are  not  less  obtrusive 
and  not  less  ubiquitous  than  the  bad  or  vulgar 
men  are  everywhere;  the  art  of  right  reading  is 
as  long  and  difficult  to  learn  as  the  art  of  right 
living.  Those  who  are  on  good  terms  with  the  first 
author  they  meet,  run  as  much  risk  as  men  who 
surrender  their  time  to  the  first  passer  in  the 


FREDERIC  HARRISON 


street;  for  to  be  open  to  every  book  is  for  the 
most  part  to  gain  as  little  as  possible  from  any.  A 
man  aimlessly  wandering  about  in  a  crowded  city 
is  of  all  men  the  most  lonely ;  so  he  who  takes  up 
only  the  books  that  he  "comes  across"  is  pretty 
certain  to  meet  but  few  that  are  worth  know- 
ing. ...  A  great  deal  of  our  modern  literature  is 
such  that  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  resist  it,  and 
it  is  undeniable  that  it  gives  us  real  information. 
It  seems  perhaps  unreasonable  to  many  to  assert 
that  a  decent  readable  book  which  gives  us  actual 
instruction  can  be  otherwise  than  a  useful  com- 
panion and  a  solid  gain.  .  .  .  But  the  question 
which  weighs  upon  me  with  such  really  crushing 
urgency  is  this :  What  are  the  books  that  in  our 
little  remnant  of  reading  time  it  is  most  vital  for 
us  to  know?  For  the  true  use  of  books  is  of  such 
sacred  value  to  us  that  to  be  simply  entertained  is 
to  cease  to  be  taught,  elevated,  inspired  by  books ; 
merely  to  gather  information  of  a  chance  kind  is 
to  close  the  mind  to  knowledge  of  the  urgent  kind. 
Every  book  that  we  take  up  without  a  purpose  is 
an  opportunity  lost  of  taking  up  a  book  with  a 
purpose — every  bit  of  stray  information  which  we 

93 


RIGHT  READING 


cram  into  our  heads  without  any  sense  of  its  im- 
portance, is  for  the  most  part  a  bit  of  the  most 
useful  information  driven  out  of  our  heads  and 
choked  off  from  our  minds.  .  .  . 

A  healthy  mode  of  reading  would  follow  the 
lines  of  a  sound  education.  And  the  first  canon  of 
a  sound  education  is  to  make  it  the  instrument  to 
perfect  the  whole  nature  and  character.  Its  aims 
are  comprehensive,  not  special;  they  regard  life 
as  a  whole,  not  mental  curiosity;  they  have  to 
give  us,  not  so  much  materials,  as  capacities.  So 
that,  however  moderate  and  limited  the  opportu- 
nity for  education,  in  its  way  it  should  be  always 
more  or  less  symmetrical  and  balanced,  appeal- 
ing equally  in  turn  to  the  three  grand  intellec- 
tual elements — imagination,  memory,  reflection: 
and  so  having  something  to  give  us  in  poetry,  in 
history,  in  science,  and  in  philosophy.  ...  A 
wise  education,  and  so  judicious  reading,  should 
leave  no  great  type  of  thought,  no  dominant  phase 
of  human  nature,  wholly  a  blank.  Whether  our 
reading  be  great  or  small,  so  far  as  it  goes  it 
should  be  general.  If  our  lives  admit  of  but  a 
short  space  for  reading,  all  the  more  reason  that, 


94 


————————  >-         • J— ^        -  5      J-  V—  >-         >— j-j-  >      —  >—; ; —  ., 

FREDERIC   HARRISON 

so  far  as  may  be,  it  should  remind  us  of  the  vast 
expanse  of  human  thought,  and  the  wonderful 
variety  of  human  nature.  ...  Be  it  imagination, 
memory,  or  reflection  that  we  address — that  is,  in 
poetry,  history,  science,  or  philosophy,  our  first 
duty  is  to  aim  at  knowing  something  at  least  of 
the  best,  at  getting  some  definite  idea  of  the 
mighty  realm  whose  outer  rim  we  are  permitted 
to  approach.  .  .  . 

I  will  say  nothing  of  that  side  of  reading  which 
is  really  hard  study,  an  effort  of  duty,  matter  of 
meditation  and  reverential  thought.  .  .  .  For  I 
am  speaking  now  of  the  use  of  books  in  our  leisure 
hours.  I  will  take  the  books  of  simple  enjoyment, 
books  that  one  can  laugh  over  and  weep  over; 
and  learn  from,  and  laugh  or  weep  again ;  which 
have  in  them  humour,  truth,  human  nature  in  all 
its  sides,  pictures  of  the  great  phases  of  human 
history;  and  withal  sound  teaching  in  honesty, 
manliness,  gentleness,  patience.  Of  such  books,  I 
say,  books  accepted  by  the  voice  of  all  mankind 
as  matchless  and  immortal,  there  is  a  complete 
library  at  hand  for  every  man,  in  his  every  mood, 
whatever  his  tastes  or  his  acquirements.  .  .  .  But 


95 


RIGHT  READING 


who  can  say  that  these  books  are  read  as  they 
might  be,  that  we  do  not  neglect  them  for  some- 
thing in  a  new  cover,  or  which  catches  our  eye  in  a 
library?  It  is  not  merely  to  the  idle  and  unreading 
world  that  this  complaint  holds  good.  It  is  the  in- 
satiable readers  themselves  who  so  often  read  to 
the  least  profit.  Of  course  they  have  read  all  these 
household  books  many  years  ago,  read  them,  and 
judged  them,  and  put  them  away  for  ever.  They 
will  read  infinite  dissertations  about  these  authors ; 
they  will  write  you  essays  on  their  works;  they 
will  talk  most  learned  criticism  about  them.  But 
it  never  occurs  to  them  that  such  books  have  a 
daily  and  perpetual  value,  such  as  the  devout 
Christian  finds  in  his  morning  and  evening  psalm ; 
that  the  music  of  them  has  to  sink  into  the  soul 
by  continual  renewal;  that  we  have  to  live  with 
them  and  in  them,  till  their  ideal  world  habitually 
surrounds  us  in  the  midst  of  the  real  world ;  that 
their  great  thoughts  have  to  stir  us  daily  anew, 
and  their  generous  passion  has  to  warm  us  hour 
by  hour;  just  as  we  need  each  day  to  have  our 
eyes  filled  by  the  light  of  heaven,  and  our  blood 
warmed  by  the  glow  of  the  sun.  I  vow  that,  when 

96 


FREDERIC  HARRISON 


I  see  men,  forgetful  of  the  perennial  poetry  of  the 
world,  muckraking  in  a  litter  of  fugitive  refuse, 
I  think  of  that  wonderful  scene  in  the  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  where  the  Interpreter  shows  the  way- 
farers the  old  man  raking  in  the  straw  and  dust, 
whilst  he  will  not  see  the  Angel  who  offers  him  a 
crown  of  gold  and  precious  stones. 

THE  CHOICE  OF  BOOKS 


97 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

taRY  SCHOOi  iAiLruwii 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


MAY  2  7  1957 


JUL  1  <--  1962 


JUL 


282161 


OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


